On the Cowboy's Trail: Western Boxed-Set. Coolidge Dane

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СКАЧАТЬ himself on record in a protest against the law.

      "The Constitution of the United States guarantees to every man a fair and speedy trial," he declaimed with drunken vehemence, "but look here and see what a mockery you have made the law! Look at these poor men, caged up here yet, waiting for their trial! Is that a fair and speedy hearing? Look at me; arrested for no offence; confined without cause; condemned without a hearing; imprisoned for no crime! Is that justice? Justice forsooth! It is conspiracy—treachery—crime! Yes, I say crime! You are the criminals and we the helpless victims of your hands! I appeal to God, if there is a God, to bear witness of my innocence! What? I must go in? Then throw open your prison doors—I die a martyr to the Cause!"

      The clanging of the cell doors gave no pause to his impassioned eloquence, nor yet his sudden injection into jail; but when, as he swayed upon his heels, his eyes fell upon the haggard features of Pecos Dalhart, the apostle of civic equality stopped short and struck his brow with a despairing hand.

      "What!" he cried. "Are you here, Cumrad? Then let me die forthwith, for tyranny has done its worst! Pecos Dalhart, immured within prison walls, torn from the fond embrace of his—but hush, I go too far. Pecos, old boy, in the years to come your name shall go down to posterity as a martyr to the Cause. You have been arrested, sir, for no crime in law or fact, but simply for your outspoken opposition to the foul conspiracy of capitalism. Oh, that I might stand before the people and plead your cause—But enough; how are you, Old Hoss?"

      He gathered Pecos into his arms and embraced him, and to the astonishment of Hung Wo and the prisoners Pecos hugged him to his breast.

      "I'm dam' glad to see you, Angy," he murmured, "and no mistake. Here—take this strap and keep them fellers off—I'm dyin' for a sleep." He reached back for the floor, slipped gently down and stretched out upon the hard concrete. When Angevine Thorne lifted up his head he was asleep.

      "Poor old Pecos," said Angy, holding out his hands as Mark Antony did over Cæsar, "there he lies, a victim to his country's laws. But sleep, old friend, and the first man that disturbs your dreams will feel the weight of this!" He held up the alcalde's strap for emphasis, and a low rumble of disapproval went up from the rows of cells.

      "He broke every head in jail last night," volunteered the deputy, "an' it's about time he was kangarooed!"

      "Not while I live!" declared Angy tragically. "Right or wrong, the first man that lays hands on this poor corse will fight it out with me!"

      A chorus of defiance and derision was his only answer, but Angevine Thorne, being a natural-born orator, knew better than to reiterate his remarks for emphasis. He balanced the big strap in his hand as a warrior might test his sword, and squatted down to eat. While the dinner hour lasted he was safe—after that he would feel his way. So he put his back to the bars and began to take a little nourishment, gnashing belligerently at his hunk of meat and fortifying himself with coffee—but that was not to be the limit of his fare. As he scuttled back and forth with the prison plates, Hung Wo had kept an attentive eye upon the prostrate form of his boss and, seeing no signs of returning animation, had looked worried. At last, as Angy's protectorate became evident, he returned to his copper can and produced a fine big pie.

      "This for boss," he said, and placed it by Pecos's head.

      "All right, Wo," responded Angy, "my friend, he sleep. Bimeby wakum up, I give him pie." He finished up his plate, glanced at the surly faces behind the bars, and cast a longing look at the fresh-baked pie. There was going to be a ruction, that was sure, and ructions are bad for pies. He took Pecos by the shoulder and shook him tentatively; then with a sigh of Christian resignation he reached over and picked up the pie. "Dam' shame to go and waste it," he muttered, "an' it's all right, too."

      The prisoners watched him eat his way through the crust and down through the middle until finally he licked his finger-tips and smiled.

      "Him good pie, Wo," he observed, rising to his feet, "make me hip stlong." He shoved Pecos back into the corner, took his place before him, and balanced the strap for battle. "All right, deputy," he said, "turn them tarriers loose, and if I don't tan their hides with this strap they ain't no hell no mo'!"

      The cell doors clanged and flew open, the balked cohorts of the enemy stepped forth and gathered about him, and as Angy paced back and forth before his friend he opened wide the flood-gates of his wrath.

      "See the skulkin' curs and cowards," he cried, lashing out at them with his strap, "see them cringe before the whip like the servile slaves they are. What has this man done that you should fall upon him? Broke up your court, hey? Well, what was the court to you? Didn't it punish you whether you were right or wrong? Didn't it tyrannize over you and force you to do its will? Ah, despicable dogs, that would lick the hand that strikes you—come out here, any one of you, and I swear I'll beat you to death. Hah! You are afraid! You are afraid to face an honest man and fight him hand to hand! Or is it something else?" The defiant tone left his voice of a sudden and he looked eagerly into their tense faces. "Or is it something else?" he cried. "Friends, you have been shut up here for months by that great crime they call the law. You know that law—how it protects the rich and crushes down the poor! What then—do you still worship its outworn forms so that you must suffer them even in jail? Must you still have a sheriff to harass you, a judge to condemn you, a district attorney to talk you blind? Must you still be tyrannized over by a false and illegal court, even in the shadow of the jail? God forbid! But what then? Ah, yes; what then! Friends, I bring you the Gospel of Equality; I stand before you to proclaim as our forebears proclaimed before us, that all men are born free and equal; I call upon you, even in this prison, to cast aside the superstition of government and proclaim the revolution! To hell with the Kangaroo Court! My friend here has beaten up its officers—let us abolish it forever! What? Is it a go? Then here's to the revolution!"

      He waved his hand above his head, smiling upward at that fair Goddess of Liberty whom he discerned among the rods; and the gaping prisoners, carried away by his eloquence, let out a mighty yell of joy. Worn and jaded by the dull monotony of their life they seized upon the new religion with undiscriminating zest, passing up the big words and the moonshine and rejoicing in their noble freedom from restraint. As the first symptoms of a jail-riot began to develop Boone Morgan and his deputies rushed out to quell the disturbance, but the revolution gave no promise of a rough-house. As was to be expected, the prostrate form of Pecos Dalhart was draped across the foreground—and served him right, for trying to get too gay—but the other figures were not in good support. Angevine Thorne stood above the body of his friend, waving the alcalde's strap, but the Roman mob was sadly out of part. It was dancing around the room singing "Kansas."

      "I'll tell you what they do—in Kansas,"

      they howled.

      "I'll tell you what they do—in Kansas,"

      and at the end of each refrain Angy lifted up his vibrant tenor and added yet another chapter to the shameless tale. It was a bacchanalia of song, perhaps; or a saturnalia of inter-State revilings; but none of the onlookers recognized in the progressive dirtiness of the words a spirit of protest against the law. The revolution had come, but like many another promising child it was too young to be clearly differentiated from its twin brothers, License and Liberty.

      CHAPTER XVI

       BACK TO NATURE

       Table of Contents

      As to what the revolution is or is to be there are no two authorities who agree. It is not a thing, to be measured and defined; nay, it is a dream which, like our ideas СКАЧАТЬ